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Top Model is so over. Let them cry, I don't care. New TV obsession: Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. I know you're not watching and you must start immediately.

I've been stuck in my apartment for the past few days, teetering on the edge of my couch for hours on end, watching those damn marathons. I'm so busy I forget to eat, yet I find five hours in the middle of the evening to sit and watch a bunch of scraggly carnie-types haul metal cages out of the water. Excuse me, those are called "pots." I know the correct terminology now.

Let me just say, I think crabs are gross, nothing more than underwater cockroaches. Sushi: I eat California rolls with "krab," thanks. Second: you know those guys stink. Blech. I can smell them through my TV.

But I can't get enough of the Hansen brothers, with their blond hair and Vikingness and pink-lipped-cuteness. I respect their hard work, I really do, blah blah blah, being a fisherman is hard. I am terrified every time the boat rolls that someone is going to slide right into the ocean and die immediately of shock. This show is exhausting to watch. I'm a mess. But then Edgar Hansen blinks or breathes or just stands there and it's all about him being cute and I am googling "how to become a fisherman" just so I can have the chance to haul pots with him and share a bunk. Am I really that guy? Do I really watch Deadliest Catch and dream of spooning with Edgar? Is THAT what I get from this show? Pathetic. But hot damn, they're just so butch and cool. Even though I get the impression there are a few fisherman that also make the occasional appearance on Cops.

I was in a van the other day with a group of people, and we hit some bumps. I threw myself across the seat and started screaming for Edgar to secure the pots. No one got it. People, we must start watching this show. Although you can mute it whenever Hiram is talking. Don't know who Hiram is? You'll learn.

It's in Miami Beach during the summer, so there won't be a super-big party or anything, as there aren't many people nutty enough to live in Miami in July. But it will be fun nonetheless. The soiree' will be at a restaurant where I bartend; on Friday nights they bring in DJ's and play 80's music and turn the place into a makeshift club. Big fun. My birthday is actually July 2, a Sunday, but I see no problem in starting the birthdayness early and celebrating the event on that Friday, June 30.

The problem is, I can't decide on a theme. So far, the contenders--as suggested by my friends:

1) Alice In Wonderland Gone Wrong: imagine drag queens dressed as Alice and the Queen of Hearts, but dirty. Could be fun.

• Okay, seriously--that "Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys" joke was actually the best part of the entire travesty of a show called the American Idol finale. Although I can only imagine how much they paid Prince to sing. And I can't imagine why, of all the people in that audience, they felt the climax of announcing the winner would be best encapsulated by cutting to DAVID HASSELHOFF crying. PS: why was Clay Aiken wearing a black octopus on his head?

• If you work for a restaurant, hotel, or any other company in the Miami area that wants to donate a gift certificate for the Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce charity auction, let me know. Good publicity for you.

• For all the people emailing, and asking how to get in touch with Ryan Smith and/or send donations for his medical care (which is astronomical, obviously), his mailing address is:

Ryan Smith
P O Box 94
Castalia, Ohio
44824

Have a fundraiser! Sell Krispy Kreme donuts!

• If you work for a place that sells/makes fancy blue jeans, let me know that too.

I took great interest in Ryan Smith's story because I also had a massive head injury, years ago. I was 18, I was on the roof of a store at a party, walking around looking up at the sky. I was trying to see a meteor shower. Apparently. There are a few days I don't remember. As I walked right off the damned building.

It was dark.

I wasn't drunk or anything, I just didn't know the roof ended. Months later my friends and I went back to the store to look at everything again, and sure enough, there was no light anywhere around the perimeter of the building, signifying the existence of a wall, which would mean the roof ended there. It was only about 14 feet, the equivalent of falling out of a 2nd-storey window. Crunch.

I woke up a day or two later, for about a minute: an elderly nurse named Shirley was sponge-bathing my legs in the ICU of the local hospital. I kept having subconscious fits, screaming that I was falling, so they strapped me down to the bed. When I opened my eyes, Shirley just said "Well hello, Mr. Renzi." And my mother ran over, smiled, and immediately held up a mirror. "Do you want to see what you look like?" she asked. And my first coherent thought: My mother knows me so well. My second coherent thought: Thank God I didn't break my nose. And I was back out, until a day later.

When I woke up again, I couldn't understand anything that anyone was saying; it all sounded like jibberish. I tried to talk, but it came out a baby-babble. The doctors told my parents I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.

But then a few days after that, I just opened my eyes, and I understood everything that was going on. I still couldn't speak, as spinal fluid had collected somewhere in my head and was pinching off the nerves that controlled most of my face. This fluid moved around over the next week or so, numbing various nerves; one day I couldn't chew, the next I couldn't blink my right eye. But it was only temporary. And I just used my hand to push my eyelid closed.

The place: a gay guest house in Ft Lauderdale. After watching a hilarious drag show at some bar, we found a few sober people to take the car keys and motor us all over for a late-night skinny dip. Certain members of the group, those on the younger side, were intimidated by the overt display of sexy-type behavior. But there's no need to sully the evening with some horribly-weird sex party thing. We just wanted to go swimming. And we were drunk. That was it.

~~~

Recently I was offered a job working at Busch Gardens in Tampa, running one of the animal shows. I happen to have experience training birds, it's really random. But after undergoing drug tests and all the training, the night before I was set to move to Tampa they mentioned the salary wasn't as high as what they originally told me. Actually, it was only $1400 a month. (???) Apparently people are lined up for these jobs, so they can pay whatever they want. And apparently they can tell people one thing when they apply, then another on the night before they're set to start working. Ugh.

So I hung up my phone, and sat in my car in the parking lot of a Boston Market, hyperventilating for a minute or two. Then I checked into a hotel. As I had no place to live. Because I was planning on moving to Tampa the next day.

None of my friends work on Sundays, or Mondays, so we proclaimed today Sunday Funday and set out for an adventure. Everything is more fun when you give it a theme.

The definition of chaos: going to a gay beach and yelling "SHARK!" while pointing at a finned animal in the water. A relatively-large finned animal slithered along, right through the crowds, when it rose high enough to the surface for its dorsal fin to stick out, Jaws-style. It totally looked like a shark. And the lesbians were screaming at everyone to get out of the water. When lesbians scream at you, you obey. So the queens ran for their lives, shreiking, a flash of colors from all the technicolor Speedos zooming towards land. By the time the water police roared up in their boat, we got a better look and realized it was just a fish--tarpin?--and were already back to frolicking amongst the waves. It was about 5 feet long, though. Huge fish. Super-scary. (For about 30 seconds.)

Then two guys playing paddleball on the beach kept whacking their ball into crowds of people. When they hit me in the chest with it, I picked it up and threw it out into the ocean. They got pissed. Whatever. I thought it was funny and well-deserved. Too bad a shark tarpin didn't eat them it.

We're on our way to some nightclub now. I've decided I'm going to find a boyfriend. Maybe not at a nightclub, just in the near future. I have a job, I have an apartment, I'm settling down doing all the things I'm supposed to do to be a responsible adult. I hope God points an eligible gentleman in my direction. Although he might be mad that I threw those guys' ball into the water, out of spite. That's a deadly sin, I believe. But if I could receive some divine help, I'd appreciate it.

PS: Ryan Smith, the gay-bashing guy from the previous post, is back home in New York after a month of recovery here in Miami. He is doing well. I adore him, he's hilarious. Thanks to all who sent emails of well-wishes, he read them all, and promised donations for his medical bills, which of course are outrageous. We've got more to tell about that story, stay tuned.

Ryan Smith was with a group of friends in a St Maarten bar, having a few drinks after yet another lucky wins at the local casino. St Maarten is promoted as a gay-friendly destination, and although the bar they were in was not specifically a gay bar, the locals are generally welcoming and gay visitors have usually felt comfortable everywhere on the island. But as Ryan and his boyfriend, Justin, were sitting off to the side they gave each other a hug, when a group of locals spotted them.

What resulted is told in the story that follows. Honestly, it's infuriating, not just because of the attack, but because of what has happened since with the police, the government, and the attackers who still have not been caught. The small island "St Martin" is split into two territories: St Martin is French, and St Maarten is Dutch; but the entire island's systems of government are grossly negligent.

There has been a lot of attention on this case because Ryan and Dick Jefferson, another friend in the group who was attacked, work for CBS News. Nothing was done about this case until Dick flew back to the island, threatened the government with media pressure, and they feared the negative press would deter future tourists.

I spent several days with Ryan, talking about the incident; when I mentioned the gay cruises that are still scheduled to stop at the island, he said he wanted to tell the story of what happened that night. It was far beyond the typical "gay bashing," if there is such.

Although he has healed well over the past month and should make a full recovery, Ryan still has problems communicating. Sitting for several sessions over two days, he told me what he wanted to say, and I typed. Please read.